


Bread Crumbs

by aquietdin



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Baking, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Marinette is a good friend
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-02
Updated: 2019-07-02
Packaged: 2020-06-02 19:48:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19448332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aquietdin/pseuds/aquietdin
Summary: Sunday was normally his favorite day of the week. He could get his homework done in the morning, then hang out with Nino or some other friends. See a movie, go ice skating, do… something. Leave his house and pretend he was normal for a few hours. It was the one day his father’s iron grip seemed to loosen by just a fraction, letting him have the tiniest taste of freedom.Normally he’d be thrilled that it was Sunday. Today, however, he just wished the sun would set so he could sleep it off.





	Bread Crumbs

**Author's Note:**

> A short one-shot that was rattling around in my head.

It was Sunday.

Sunday was normally his favorite day of the week. He could get his homework done in the morning, then hang out with Nino or some other friends. See a movie, go ice skating, do…  _ something. _ Leave his house and pretend he was normal for a few hours. It was the one day his father’s iron grip seemed to loosen by just a fraction, letting him have the tiniest taste of freedom.

Normally he’d be thrilled that it was Sunday. Today, however, he just wished the sun would set so he could sleep it off.

Adrien had been staring at the bouquet of roses in the bucket in front of him for at least ten minutes. Maybe more. It was cold outside, prompting him to don a sweater and boots instead of his usual button down and sneakers, but inside the florist shop was balmy and he was beginning to sweat.

“Hurry it up,” Plagg complained softly from somewhere beneath the woven green wool. “I’m turning into roast Kwami in here!”

With a noisy sigh, he reached for the bouquet. Red.

He had a complicated relationship with that color.

Adrien paid with his credit card, not even hearing the clerk tell him how much they were. Not like it mattered, he could practically buy himself a jet right now if he really wanted to. He thanked the woman and left, hearing a bell chime as he opened the door and stepped out into the chill February air. It sort of felt like he was standing a few feet outside his body, a pervasive numbness climbing through every part of him. The roses in his hand felt far heavier than twelve flowers had any right to. He just needed to get this over with.

He didn’t register the smack of heels against the pavement until something collided with his right side, almost throwing him off balance. It wasn’t enough to make him fall, but Adrien still stumbled to the left, throwing an arm out to counterbalance as his feet lurched to shove themselves between his face and the pavement.

There was a loud “oomph” in the direction the hit came from, followed by the sound of several things falling to the ground. Including a person. Once he was mostly certain he wasn’t getting a mouthful of Parisian cobblestone, Adrien turned to his attacker.

Sprawled out on the sidewalk, surrounded by fabric samples, spools of thread, and at least three packages of buttons, a girl sat rubbing at her head.

“Ow.”

“Marinette?”

Her giant blue eyes snapped up to him, going wide. If he’d been in better spirits, Adrien might have laughed at the sight. Marinette didn’t respond, just sat on the sidewalk gaping, her usual pink jeans and flower print shirt replaced with a pale blue shirt dress, khaki jacket, and grey leggings.

“Are you alright?” Adrien extended his free hand to her.

There was a moment of perfect stillness before Marinette snapped into action, leaping to her feet, her cheeks flushing a brilliant pink.

“A-Adrien!” she stuttered. “I’m so sorry, I wasn’t going where I was looking! I mean - I wasn’t walking - I mean --”

He felt the corner of his mouth quirk up. Marinette was certainly unique; her clumsy nature and unmatched ability to trip over her words was more than a little endearing, especially when paired with her honest and generous disposition. Adrien had never met anyone like her, and it wasn’t a lie to say he treasured having her friendship.

She began furiously gathering up the items she’d dropped in their collision. “I’m so sorry,” she said again, stuffing her fabric samples into a canvas tote bag that hung from her elbow. “I was just in a hurry, and…”

He might not have noticed the way she trailed off, given how mentally far away he was that day, but something about the way Marinette scanned his face gave Adrien pause.

“Hey,” she took a step closer. “Are you alright?”

Blinking, Adrien took longer to respond than he should have, probably. “Yeah, I’m okay.”

Her bottom lip stuck out in a little pout, one of her eyebrows rising to hide behind her bangs. She didn’t believe him at all. It figures, Adrien was an abysmal liar.

“The roses are beautiful,” she told him, her tone unnervingly even. “For someone special?”

He held up the bouquet in his left hand, crimson petals surrounded by pearlescent paper and a gold ribbon. Roses he wished more than anything he didn’t have to buy. “Yeah.”

When he looked up again, Marinette had inched closer, concern written on every feature. She searched his eyes with hers. “Are you sure you’re okay? Did something happen?”

Adrien was tired. So tired. Exhausted, worn out, worn thin, and in that moment he couldn’t remember ever feeling lonelier. But Marinette was right here, his friend, who he trusted. And he would give almost anything to not have to be alone today.

“Are you free? Like, right now?”

Marinette blinked. Then blinked again, slowly. He could practically hear the gears turning in her brain.

“Um… I guess?”

He glanced down to the roses one more time. “Maybe you can help me with something.”

Marinette agreed, and thankfully didn’t press him with questions as Adrien led her to the car where his bodyguard was waiting, opening the door for her before climbing in on the other side. The ride to his home was eerily silent, and once there, he led her to his door and inside.

“Is it okay for me to be here?” Marinette asked with all the courage of a cottage mouse. Adrien only shrugged.

“My father is in London for work, Nathalie is with him. Here,” he motioned for her to follow. “This way.”

With Marinette obediently on his heels, he wound his way through the house, to the kitchen, and out the back door to the private courtyard. His grip on the bouquet was becoming tight enough to feel one of the thorns pushing into his palm, even through layers of paper. Adrien almost lost his nerve when he spotted the stature, a few dead leaves scattered over it. He glanced over at Marinette, who looked puzzled, but gave him a tiny smile and pressed her hand against his arm. The weight of her touch grounded him enough to pull a swell of air into his lungs and release it, stepping forward.

The stone eyes of his mother greeted him. The statue was an excellent likeness, down to the texture of her hair and the tiny laugh lines around her mouth. With his free hand, Adrien brushed the dead leaves from where they’d gathered on top of her head and in her lap before gently placing the bouquet in the cradle of her arms.

It took a full minute to find his voice where it wouldn’t crack.

“It was a year ago today,” he spoke mostly to the air, “That my mother went missing.”

He heard Marinette suck in a tiny, surprised breath at his side. She couldn’t have been that surprised. It was all over the news when it happened: Emilie Agreste had been in the middle of filming when she just… vanished. No traces found, no signs of foul play, no evidence. The reporters and paparazzi didn’t leave the front gate for weeks.

He pictured his mother’s face, her kind smile, the green eyes and gold hair he inherited.  _ You look so like your mother, _ he was told frequently, and in some dark corner of his mind, Adrien wondered if that was why his father wouldn’t look at him more than necessary anymore.

A pair of arms wound around one of his. Marinette had stepped close, hugging his arm, her grip tight enough to be solid but not overbearing. He felt some warmth and feeling prickle back into his limbs.

“Thank you,” he hears himself say. “For coming with me.”

“Of course.”

They stood in silence in the courtyard, the midwinter sun creeping towards the horizon, bathing Paris in a cool yellow glow. Adrien didn’t think he could cry if he wanted to. He ran out of tears within the first few months, when his father stopped talking to him and filled his schedule to bursting so they rarely crossed paths. When his home became a prison.

“Adrien?”

He turned his head to look down at her, her ridiculously blue eyes and rosy cheeks. Marinette’s mouth opened and closed several times before she spoke.

“Have you ever made bread?”

The question was so out of the blue that Adrien physically jumped, as though someone had set off an airhorn next to his ear. Reality crashed in around him with all the grace of a tsunami, and he was suddenly aware that daylight was fading, the wind was cold, and they were standing outside in the middle of winter without coats.

“No…?”

Her grin was brilliantly wide. “Do you want to learn?”

She might as well have grown a second head. But Marinette, for all her unpredictability, was also predictable in how she would always help wherever she could, however she could. And what were his options? Stay in this empty house, again? Eat dinner alone, play his piano alone, go to sleep with no one telling him goodnight except Plagg?

“Sure.”

Marinette led him by the arm back through his house, where his bodyguard was waiting by the front door. If he’d been more with it, he might have been impressed that she memorized the complicated route on the first pass, but as it stood, he just wanted to leave.

Unsurprisingly, they ended up at the Dupain-Cheng bakery. Mrs Cheng was minding the shop and they said their greetings before Marinette led him up the stairs to their living room and kitchen. He’d been here before, briefly serving as a translator for her great uncle, and then again as Chat Noir, who Marinette once claimed to be in love with. The space was the opposite of his home; it was small, dense, and cozy. Mismatched throw pillows on the couch, a few dishes in the sink, a haphazard collection of houseplants by the window. It smelled like baked goods and coffee, comfortingly warm.

Marinette set her bag down and rolled up the sleeves of her khaki jacket. “So. Bread.”

Startled out of his reverie, Adrien shook his head to clear it. “Bread.”

She walked up to him, her brown ankle boots clicking on the hardwood floor, and took his hand. “Step one is to wash up.”

Pushing up the sleeves of his sweater, Adrien washed his hands in the kitchen sink after Marinette, the liquid soap smelling like orange blossoms. She was searching through a cabinet, muttering to herself for a minute before emerging with a cloth in each hand.

“Here,” she said, shoving the blue one at him. Turning it over in his hand, Adrien realized it was an apron, well used with a few stains here and there. Marinette had donned a pink and white striped one, with a little heart-shaped pocket on the hip. She took out her phone, clicked around a bit, then set it on a nearby shelf. Music started playing softly, a popular song that he recognized.

“Okay. Step two for bread - and any baking, really - is to get out all of the ingredients before you start!” She used her toe to pull a small step stool out and stood on it, reaching into a high cabinet. “That way you don’t get halfway through the recipe and realize you’re out of something.”

He helped her make a stack of bread ingredients on the counter: two kinds of flour, yeast, sugar, oil, salt, and eggs. Two mixing bowls came out, and Adrien was positioned in front of one of them.

“Okay,” Marinette was measuring yeast into each of their bowls. “We’re gonna start by adding warm water to yeast to make sure it’s alive.”

Adrien made a face. “Alive?”

“Dead yeast won’t make the bread rise,” Marinette explained as she poured water into each of their bowls. “If you see bubbles in a few minutes, then it’s good. If not, the yeast is dead and needs to be thrown out.”

So Adrien found himself staring into a bowl of yeast slurry watching for air bubbles while one of his friends and classmates hummed to herself at his side. This was quickly becoming one of the strangest days he’d had in a long time, and that included chasing Akumatized supervillains through Paris while wearing skin tight leather and a mask.

“Oh,” he said, pointing. “There’s bubbles.”

Marinette led him on to the next step, then the next. He mimicked her movements carefully - he was nothing if not a fast learner - and soon had a bowl of almost-dough, stirring the sticky, goopy mixture with a wooden spoon.

“We’ll need a little more flour than the recipe calls for,” Marinette said. “The humidity is about…” She paused, then rubbed her fingers and thumb together. “...Seventy percent, so we have some wiggle room.”

Blinking, Adrien fished his phone from his pocket and checked his weather app. The humidity read 70%.

“How did you do that?”

“Hm?”

He held up his phone to show the screen. “You’re exactly right.”

Marinette looked from his phone to his face a few times, then blushed. “Baker’s trick. My dad taught me.”

He couldn’t stop the smile that crept over his face. Marinette was full of surprises.

With the four added, they eventually had something more like actual bread dough, turning it out onto the flour coated countertop. Marinette showed him how to knead, to pull the bread in one direction and push it with his fingers in the other. Music continued to play from Marinette’s phone, upbeat pop music that was loud enough to hear but still low enough to easily talk over. He caught himself tapping his foot to the beat more than once.

Their dough lumps returned to the bowls, nicely shaped, and Marinette covered both of them with a kitchen towel. “Now we wait.”

“Oh.” Brushing his flour covered fingers over his borrowed apron, Adrien looked around. He hadn’t felt like himself all day, waking up in someone else’s body, someone else’s life. But as Marinette scooped up her phone and set a timer, he could sort of feel like he was returning, like rising from an unplanned nap, groggy and disoriented. Adrien washed his hands just before Marinette took him by the wrist and dragged him to the couch. A tiny game controller was pushed into his hands.

“Ever played Snipper Clips?”

He had not.

It was easily the most  _ ridiculous  _ game he’d ever seen. They were each controlling little pieces of paper and trying to form shapes by cutting pieces out of each other, Marinette controlling the red piece while Adrien took the yellow one. It took a few tries to get the hang of it, but soon they’d formed a little heart on the screen.

The next puzzle was harder, and Adrien pressed the wrong button, cutting out a giant section of Marinette’s red paper piece. She gasped in horror, then sent him a look.

“It’s  _ on, _ Agreste.”

The goal of the game was abandoned in favor of chasing each other around the game stage, trying to cut their paper pieces to shreds. He managed to snip her down to nothing once, she got him twice, and Adrien was almost startled by the laugh that bubbled up from his chest. It felt like he hadn’t laughed in years.

He knew what Marinette was doing. She was trying to distract him, give him something else to focus on, a way to temporarily forget about the red roses on his mother’s statue. He couldn’t say he wasn’t thankful for it. After a few more rounds, the timer on Marinette’s phone beeped, and they went to knead their now much larger lumps of bread dough and shape them for the oven. With their bread now safely baking, Marinette took the apron back and set their bowls in the sink.

“I’ll be right back, do you need anything?”

“Uh.” He could feel Plagg squirming inside his shirt. “Can I use your bathroom?”

They went down one floor and Marinette pointed him in the right direction. Once the door was closed, Adrien pulled the collar away from his neck. “You can come out now, Plagg.”

His Kwami darted out from beneath his sweater and wavered dramatically. “That wool! It’s so itchy! Why did you wear it?”

“Because it’s cold.”

“Humans are weird,” Plagg grumbled. “And I’m hungry! Where’s the cheese?”

Adrien pinched the bridge of his nose. “You ate an entire wheel of camembert this morning.”

“That was hours ago!”

Plagg was a certifiable black hole. Adrien was surprised that his father and Nathalie hadn’t questioned his gratuitous consumption of soft cheeses over the last six months - he probably went through more of it than the average restaurant.

“I’ll sneak you something soon, I promise.”

With a pout Plagg returned to his sweater, nestling himself next to Adrien’s ribs with what he’d come to identify as a tiny purr. And to think, he’d spent years trying to convince his parents to let him have a cat.

Once he was done in the bathroom, Adrien climbed the stairs to return to the Dupain-Cheng living room. Marinette was already there, opening the oven with a towel over her hand. The smell of freshly baked bread hit him, and for the second time that day, reality snapped into sharp focus.

“They’re almost done,” Marinette said as she closed the oven. “A few more minutes.”

The door behind him swung open, and Marinette’s parents came bustling through. Adrien gulped. The last time he was here, Mister Dupain had gone completely overboard, getting himself Akumatized and leaving Chat Noir to rescue him and his daughter from mortal peril ten miles above Paris - not to mention giving his superhero alter ego a thorough thrashing. And before that, when he came over to train for the game tournament? They could barely play for five minutes without hearing the creak of a floor hatch opening.

“Hello Adrien,” Sabine greeted him. “I hear Marinette is teaching you to bake?”

He nervously scratched the back of his neck. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Stay for dinner?” Tom asked, opening the fridge. “I’d love to try your first loaf of bread!”

When was the last time he had dinner somewhere that wasn’t his empty dining room or a stuffy five star restaurant? “I’d love to,” Adrien answered.

Dinner in the Dupain-Cheng household was, in a word,  _ chaos. _

Once the bread was out of the oven and resting on the counter, everything seemed to explode in a flurry of movement. Marinette washed the dishes in the sink, Tom pulled carrots and mushrooms from the fridge, and Sabine somehow weaved through both of them to set a glass of water in front of Adrien. The news was put on the TV as Marinette and her father prepared dinner, dancing around each other and trading inside jokes. There was practice to their movements, a familiarity that told of many evenings spent much the same way. It was noisy, messy, and - and so full of  _ love _ that Adrien felt it all the way through his toes, laughing along with Marinette’s lighthearted jabs at her father.

The meal they made together was chicken coq au vin, and while it roasted, Marinette’s parents pulled various jars of butter and jams from the fridge for the moment of truth: Adrien’s bread. He felt an old familiar anxiety buzz under his skin as his loaf was sliced, wondering if it was good, if he’d done it correctly, if the two professional bakers in front of him would approve. If it was perfect. Everything had to be perfect, he didn’t know any other way to exist.

“Well done, Adrien!” Tom declared, taking several bites of buttered bread. “Good texture, balanced flavor. You’re a natural!”

The relief was like a wash of warm water over his skin, chasing away the old familiar chill of hard eyes with high expectations staring him down. He took a bite of the bread he made, and allowed himself to be proud, slipping a piece of brie under the table for Plagg.

Dinner was more chatter, more jokes. There was so sign of the stiff formality he was accustomed to as his plate was piled with food, and he found himself beating a fist to his chest more than once as a stray joke from Marinette would almost make him choke on laughter. The food slowly disappeared, and Adrien offered to help clean up, a chore he only managed to win by giving his best doe-eyes.

The wind was still as cold when he found himself on Marinette’s rooftop balcony, but softer and less biting than it had been that afternoon. With a mug of hot cocoa in his hands and a fleece blanket over his shoulders, Adrien looked out over Paris, lights twinkling as the brightest stars shone against the dark sky. Marinette sat beside him on the spool table, sipping from her own mug, the other half of the blanket around her delicate frame.

“Thank you, Marinette.” He felt her pause next to him and looked down to see her gazing at him with a soft fondness. It reminded him of his mother, the days when she could right any wrong in the world with her smile alone.

“Today seemed like it had nothing but sad memories for you,” Marinette answered, looking out at the city below. “I thought I’d give you some happy ones to balance it out.”

Smiling, he leaned against her just a little. He would have to call his bodyguard for a ride home soon. Tomorrow his father would be home, and everything would go back to normal, or at least what constituted normal in his life. But here, right now, he had a mug of hot cocoa, the Parisian sky, and a friend at his side. And as they sat in comfortable silence, Adrien thought that it might just be enough.


End file.
